workers power: C/D?

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I was chairing a small panel discussion on the politics of art in Manchester a few weeks ago and I've not fully recovered. When one of the panel members (it might have been me) suggested that artists might be better off organising things for themselves a youngish member of the audience stated categorically, "we need managers, though. I mean, imagine how chaotic it would be if the railways were run by rail workers instead of managers!" Nobody in the room seemed to disagree with this (apart from me).

Do we need managers? Would industry and culture be chaotic if the workers took control of how they are managed? Am I completely out of step in thinking that workers are just as capable as anyone else of running things?

Is there a consensus that manageres are vital to industry and culture? What would happen if we didn't have them?

― run it off (run it off), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 15:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, it's 'managers' vs 'owners' isn't it, in classic Marxist terms. The managers aren't the class enemy: and you'd be hard-pressed to run a railway without a timetable, which already goes against workers' control.

― Enrique (Enrique), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 15:28 (twenty-two years ago)

but in REAL LIFE, managers represent the owners.

― Huckadelphia (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 15:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Sure, but in the PHANTASY WORLD of socialism you'd prolly (note: prolly) need some equivalent, whereas there would be no equivalent to the 'owners'.

― Enrique (Enrique), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 15:32 (twenty-two years ago)

here comes the new boss, same as the old boss!

― Huckadelphia (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 15:34 (twenty-two years ago)

hahahaha

still, can we agree on the need for timetables?

― Enrique (Enrique), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 15:34 (twenty-two years ago)

like the trains would run on time under socialism anyhoo.

― Huckadelphia (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 15:37 (twenty-two years ago)

the owners/managers thing is interesting.

But regardless of whether the manager is an owner's representative or not, I'm not even convinced that industry and culture needs managers at all. Maybe everyone else thinks that in the *real world* you have to have managers and that even a socialist society would need managers, and you might all be right. But isnt' self-management an option? I mean, if a person or a group of people managed what they did themselves, then would they be 'managers'?

I think 'managers' are separate from the people or things that they manage. Quite often managers aren't workers who've been promoted, they're taken from a different walk of life. Instead of being experts in the product they are experts in management. So, when someone says that you need managers to keep the trains running on time, you're not talking about people who know all there is to know about trains and tracks and the day to day running of the serice, you're talking about people who know about management. Maybe there is need of this sort of expertise, but are the workers incapable of doing this for themselves?

― run it off (run it off), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 20:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Workers must kept in the dark.

― Huckleberry Ford (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 20:45 (twenty-two years ago)

my mothers' partner worked in a collective printing studio, which set out to have no management and it was the best place she worked (she was there for 10 yrs or something)

― isadora (isadora), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 20:59 (twenty-two years ago)

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